


Jellyfish

by LinkWorshiper



Series: Sit, Resist [4]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 06:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5237240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinkWorshiper/pseuds/LinkWorshiper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lashing out is easier than holding it in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jellyfish

**Author's Note:**

> I'm almost done with finals! These little ficlets have been all I have had time to write, so I again apologize for their unedited nature. I still hope you enjoy reading this one! It's a bit angstier than the others in this set, but I promise I have one more after it that will hopefully make up for it ;D

 

Phyllis Baxter packed up her sewing kit and carefully draped the frock she had been mending over one arm as she prepared to head up to bed. The servants' hall was deserted and still enough to make even her breath seem like a hurricane in the moonlight. Everyone had long since retired for the night, leaving Phyllis alone with her thread and her thoughts. She couldn't say she particularly minded the quiet; there was so much caught in her mind that was much easier to resolve in solitude, and over the years, she had grown used it.

Lately, she had been thinking a lot about her best friend's little brother. He had always been lonely too, and growing up, she remembered the way he used to float by himself with companions that only he could see. She remembered the birthday his father intentionally forgot almost every year – and the neighborhood boy his same father forced his son to forget with a reed switch and a heavy fist. She remembered every unkind rumor he invented to stave off the nasty ones that only seemed to grow more distasteful the older he got; she remembered the first time he told her he wished he was dead.

But he had always been proud and unashamed of himself, even when he lashed out with electric tentacles that stung everyone they touched. Phyllis had marveled at such resolve, even envied it a little bit. In a world that existed to bring him down, Thomas Barrow had always managed to keep his nose above water – that is until the lazy afternoon he'd slid into the bathtub and stopped trying to swim.

A clatter from out in the hall jarred her from her thoughts. Worriedly, she laid the frock back onto the table and bricked it beneath the old biscuit tin she kept her bobbins and pins in. The hallway outside was almost entirely black, the incline of the stairs just barely highlighted by the glow nipping at her heels as she left the servants' hall. Barely noticeable in the gloom was a shape fixed to the iron balustrade that hiccuped and rustled uncomfortably on the steps. Tentatively, Phyllis let out a careful, “Hello?”

The shape in the dark grumbled indecipherably. Phyllis groped along the wall in search of the light switch, clicking it on with the feeling of catching out a burglar red-handed. The harsh illumination fell sharply against the angles that snipped out the shape of Jimmy Kent, who groaned loudly at the unexpected glare burning through his tightened lashes. Leaning heavily against the railing, he was dressed in his traveling wool, his newsboy cap flopping lazily over the back of his scalp and his skewed coat wanting for two missing buttons. His usually dandy hair was a twirl of blond chaos; the spidery fingers of one hand clutched an open flask, while the other flew over his eyes in irritation.

“Jimmy?” Phyllis said, just short of asking if he'd been drinking. His cindered cheeks made the question and unnecessary one.

“Too bright,” Jimmy moaned as he yanked his cap over his brow so that it hung over his nose. He belched and then lifted his flask to bottle the rude sound with a quick swig of whatever was inside.

“Maybe we should get you some water,” Phyllis suggested carefully, uncertain how Jimmy ought to be handled in such a state. Her mother had been a drinker; she had learned that sometimes it was safer leaving well enough alone in such cases.

“”M fine,” mumbled Jimmy in a way that suggested he was not. In fact, he seemed rather morose. He dropped his hand and squinted at Phyllis with a frown; “Hit the lights, will ya?” he asked. “Me head's on fire.”

The uncertain look that crossed Phyllis's face was obscured by the curtain of shadow that redecorated the hall when she flicked the electricity back off. With just the meager light from the servants' hall to guide her, Phyllis carefully stepped towards Jimmy; the scent of whiskey poured off him like a cologne as she neared. “Are you you _certain_ you don't want some water? Tea, perhaps?” she offered again.

“I'm set,” Jimmy told her, toasting her with his flask in the halflight. He took another healthy swig from the neck and then frowned at the patch of wall directly in front of him. The mirror that hung there cast a wobbly reflection of his face back at him, and his whiskey-stained lips trembled with an idle thought: “I see dark.”

Phyllis rested a hand on the banister just above Jimmy's head, peering down at him with concern. “It's quite late,” she reminded him.

“Too late,” he murmured to his reflection. Then, suddenly twisting around to blink up at Phyllis, Jimmy exclaimed, “Is it too late?” His lazy eyes were shining white rounds blinking in the darkness.

Taken aback, Phyllis had to quickly gather her breath, quite unused to the varied aspects of Jimmy's personality. “It's almost half one,” she told him, quietly thinking to herself that it was no wonder Thomas held someone with such snap in high regard. The thought made her smile to herself: she knew what a firecracker Thomas could be even without the help of a spark.

“Tick, tick, tick,” muttered Jimmy, dropping his chin back over the knot of his red tie. He nursed his flask and sighed, then hiccuped. “Watch the time pour out,” he said around another sip of whiskey. “I'm too late.”

Phyllis had to do her best to keep up with Jimmy's nonsensical ramblings, unsure exactly where his drunken mind had floated off to. “Better late than never, they say,” she said, catching Jimmy's downtrodden expression in the starlit mirror.

“ _They_ ain't never been in – “ Jimmy started to retort before catching himself with a sharp inhalation. Jimmy said sharply, “I ain't any better than the lot of 'em here. I laid around dyin', tellin' meself I were okay where I were at – while _he_ were here dyin'. I nearly let him _die_.”

It didn't take much for Phyllis to catch up, quickly realizing what was tugging Jimmy into the doldrums. Resolutely, she stepped around Jimmy and smoothed her long skirt beneath her thighs so that she might sit down on the step beside him. Folding her hands atop her knees, she watched Jimmy in the mirror as she addressed him; “You know there isn't anyone who cares so much about him as you,” she said softly. “I should know. I've known him nearly his whole life.”

“Tch, bollocks. I ain't worth a shite,” Jimmy swore, knocking back another drink that leaked from the corners of his mouth and dribbled more onto his collar than down his throat. “It took some daft kid who barely knows him to tell me what were goin' on? Quit lyin' to yourself, Kent: if you never got up again, it'd mean nowt. Useless, pithy little twit is me. And completely undeservin' of Thomas Barrow.”

To punctuate his self-loathing, Jimmy lifted his flask to take a final drink, but was instead met with a smack from Phyllis that knocked the metal container right out of his hand. Most of Jimmy's whiskey spritzed from its neck as it spiraled to the floor, where it landed with a thud. Jimmy stared through the shadows at Phyllis's indignant expression as she caught her breath, clearly just as shocked with herself as Jimmy was.

“Don't say that,” Phyllis breathed, lowering her quivering hand to the sanctuary of her lap. “Don't you _ever_ say that.”

Jimmy met her eyes with unwavering stubbornness, the flush of his cheeks burning hotly even in the cool blue that enveloped them. “Y'know I wanted to stand a round for that Andy for what he done – for writin' me,” Jimmy spat with equal unhappiness. “And the minute he's got one drink down his neck, he's squiffy enough to admit it were _him_ who let our Thomas step into the bathroom to do what he done. To have a bath in the middle of the day? How'd he not know? How'd he – “ Jimmy bent forward and clapped his hands behind his head, pressing his forehead against his knees and rocking back and forth ever so slightly. “And where was I? I'd've known it. I'd've known – I'd've – I'd've....”

“Jimmy, there's no sense in tryin' to assign _blame_ about it,” Phyllis said calmly as she dared to reach out and lay a comforting hand upon Jimmy's tensed shoulder. She could feel him trembling beneath her touch. “It's no one's _fault_.”

“But it _is_ ,” Jimmy hissed at once, his fingers weaving through the waves of hair at the nape of his neck. “It's all you fuckers who squeezed out his soul and broke his bones, leavin' him to fight 'til he's just too tired to fight anymore. It's foolish, fuckin' _me_ never thinkin' about consequences and that. It's folks like goddamn Andy doin' him wrong without even knowin' it.”

“Not everyone can be as brave as you, Jimmy,” Phyllis soothed, automatically rubbing small circles into Jimmy's back much as she used to when Thomas was small and upset by the things he didn't have the power to change on his own.

“Tch, _brave_ ,” Jimmy scoffed at the flask lying on the floor. “I ain't brave. I'm a monster disguised in a hat and a nice coat. I've made a proper mess of it all. If I'd've just been less wrapped up in meself, I'd've never had to've left him alone. I'd've never hurt him –” Jimmy folded his arms around his knees and then started to sob.

Phyllis leaned in to enfold the crumbling young man in a benevolent hug. Jimmy tilted away into her embrace, still too drunk to keep himself from sniffling into the wool of his trousers and wiping the mucus away on the rough fabric. She said nothing more; she knew she didn't have to.

“He's me devil in tails, and I'm in half without him,” Jimmy confessed, though his voice was muffled by the barrier of his arms and his blubbering. “I know I'm often difficult. He shouldn't have to wait for me to figure me shit out.”

“Oh, Jimmy, if only you knew,” murmured Phyllis as flickers of Thomas's miserable childhood drew up beside the contentment he wore whenever Jimmy was nearby. Drawing back, Phyllis gave Jimmy a reassuring pat; “Now let me get you that water.”

This time, Jimmy didn't protest and let the older woman get up while he waited on the stairs. However, once he was alone again, he bent to snatch his flask up in hopes there might be a few shakes of liquor left inside. He was rewarded with enough of a swallow to leave a pleasant burn on his tongue, which he reveled in as the hum of running water wafted from the kitchen. He looped his arms around his knees and bent over his knees again, staring ahead at his mirrored self with a frown.

“All I see is dark,” he told himself under his breath; “And we die.”

 

 


End file.
